


Devil's Claw

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:39:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something followed Dean back from Purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Claw

The darkness was a physical thing, the weight of it pressing down against his body where he lay prone and naked on his stomach, holding him down and squeezing the air from his lungs. It was graveyard dark, pre-electric dark ( _almost -- but not quite -- Purgatory dark_ ). He could hear the rustle of her thick, heavy skirts, the faint scratch of her long toenails on the hardwood floor.

"Isn't it charming?" she asked. "I had one just like it, last time I was on this side. Smaller, maybe, and so drafty in the winter, but with a big yard where the local children came to play."

She was right above him now, and he wanted to turn his head. To leap up and strike her down the way he should have over there, or at least look her in the face, let her know he wasn't afraid of her ( _he was afraid of her_ ). They'd needed her back there; no one knew more about skin. She didn't need him here, now. As far as he could tell, she was too ancient to need anything. But she wanted ( _oh yes, she wanted_ ).

"There wasn't the same variety of them, of course. My projects were very bland in those days." One long nail slowly traced the line of his shoulders, but he didn't move. He'd long ago lost the urge ( _the ability_ ) to shudder.

She'd taken them all the way down the East Coast, a trail of victims from Maine to Georgia. Different ages, different sexes, different ethnicities. Some she only shaved, those with hair long enough to make good thread. His brother was likely in here somewhere, slumped over, that ridiculous mane reduced to stubble and scraps on the floor.

Most she skinned.

"It was interesting for awhile, you know," she said, her nail now tracing the line of his spine. "Monsters come in so many varieties, after all, and scales can form such lovely patterns. But a true craftsman only works with the very best." Her voice loomed closer now, just behind his right ear ( _so close, if he could just move_ ). He twitched a finger, inching it out over the floor.

"You tempted me from the start," she said. Her breath smelled of old blood and leather. "Such fine skin, so soft and resilient." Her nail trailed lower, dipping past the curve of his waist and following his tail bone to its very end. he didn't flinch ( _never let them see you flinch_ ), even when her nail started to dig in, slicing a shallow line back up his spine towards his shoulders. He focused on his finger, pushing it forward through the dark. If she could see it, she didn't seem to care. "You paraded it around like it was nothing to you, let it be touched by your filthy friends. You don't deserve such finery." A rustle and a swish, and all ten of her fingers raked down his back, drawing parallel lines of blood. She was straddling him now ( _stripping him_ ), though she only touched him with her nails. She wouldn't contaminate her fabric. "But I remembered. The old days. The children. And your request, to fit the bloodsucker in under your skin --" One finger hooked, her long nail sliding just under his skin at her shoulder, and he choked ( _just once_ ) as she began to peel. "There's only one reason for that sort of favor. And I did so miss the children."  
She paused in her work then to run the fingers of one hand through his short hair ( _too short for her thread_ ), leaving it sticky with blood. "Don't you worry, child. Your friend never lied. That hole was only big enough for a human to fit through. But holes can stretch." She traced the line of the faint scar on his forearm ( _never healed, not the way he cut it, over and over_ ). "And your friend stretched it, just enough for an old hag like me." She drew upright again. "But I'm sure nothing else will make its way through." She cackled, her voice echoing eerily off the ceiling, just as his finger reached the edge of his jeans, discarded only a few feet away.

( _Now!_ )

He had his knife out of his back pocket and into her chest in one smooth, agonizing roll. Her last breath rattled over his face, her shark-like teeth reflecting the faint light seeping through the edges of the shrouded windows, then she crumpled into a mess of cracked leather and moldy wool on the floor.

The dark rolled back once she was gone, and he could make out the details of the room: an old restored colonial, sparsely furnished in scratched wood and fading velvet. An unfinished quilt lay draped over an antique rocking chair, the spiky pattern picked out in varied shades of rawhide. The edges lay unfinished, and he stretched his hand back, wincing when his fingers found the flap of loose skin.

The door slammed open, and he spun, knife up and ready. His brother strode in, gun raised.

"Dean." His brother frowned, looking him up and down. "I really don't want to know what happened, do I?"

He shrugged, bending gingerly down ( _Sam wasn't a them, not even now_ ) to pick up his briefs and jeans.

"Fucking crafters," he said as he slipped them on, wincing when the movement pulled at his injured back. "They never shut up."

**Author's Note:**

> _With apologies to my fellow crafters everywhere!_


End file.
